Recent News

LSE London’s Kath Scanlon and Melissa Fernandez have recently published an article on the lessons learned from a south London co-housing scheme, Featherstone, which they have been researching for 3 years. The article can be accessed here.

A visit to a large residential development site on the river in central London one recent morning raised a number of important issues about what enables successful development and what still constrains additional investment: First, large developments of apartments and associated infrastructure need off-plan sales to give the developer financial security. The larger the development the greater the need for these sales – as once the development is started it is extremely… Read More

LSE London together with Newcastle University, UK Cohousing Network, University of Leeds, Lancaster University, Nottingham University, and University of Sheffield were awarded an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) seminar series grant to hold 6 seminars on co-housing between 2014-2016.

On February 19th – Chinese New Year – LSE London held a workshop on the potential role of international money in accelerating housing development in London. The conclusion was that foreign money can definitely help to bring forward development and in current conditions may well be the only way to achieve ambitious housing targets in London. However there are barriers to expanding their involvement, not least public attitudes to foreign buyers and… Read More

From our own CorRUPSpondent – A series of blog posts written by students and alumni of the MSc Regional and Urban Planning Studies programme at the LSE. Author: Clementine Traynard On Saturday 31 January, I joined in thousands of Londoners for the first ever March for Homes. Our objective? “Better homes for Londoners and an end to the housing crisis” according to the Facebook event page. What a laudable, consensual cause. But is it a lost… Read More

From our own CorRUPSpondent – A series of blog posts written by students and alumni of the MSc Regional and Urban Planning Studies programme at the LSE. Author: Kath Scanlon One recent morning I cycled around the Aldgate one-way system[1] to Leman Street to visit Goodman’s Fields, a new Berkeley Homes development. This 10-acre site, formerly occupied by a bank check-sorting centre, will provide almost 1000 new homes in a mix of high- and mid-rise… Read More

On 9 January 2015, a team of researchers visited two new purpose-built PRS developments in East London: Stratford Halo and East Village. This site visit followed an expert roundtable held in December 2014, where sector stakeholders discussed strategies for overcoming barriers to institutional investment in the PRS. Neil Young, Chief Executive of Get Living London, and Alex Hilton, Director of Generation Rent, attended both the workshop and the site visit in January…. Read More

There is a palpable sense that alternative housing options (including self-build, co-housing, live-work, community land trusts and sustainable building technologies) are gaining momentum in London. Increased interest is evident at both policy and popular levels (see previous blog about this topic here). At the very least, there is increasing recognition that much of the supply being produced through the traditional housing market, although necessary, is not the ‘right’ kind of housing for many people…. Read More